Study finds coronavirus infection increases diabetes risk

COVID-19 infection increases the risk of developing diabetes, according to a newly released study to The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology medical journal.

Researchers from the VA Saint Louis Health Care System found people who survived COVID-19 were 40 percent more likely to develop a new case of diabetes when compared to the control group, as noted by ABC News.

The elevated risk of developing diabetes following COVID-19 infection remains for up to one year, according to the new study.

One in 100 people are at an increased risk of becoming diagnosed with diabetes following COVID-19 infection, ABC reports. 

About 80 million people have been infected with COVID-19 as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which means that nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. could develop diabetes who otherwise would not have had they not become infected with COVID-19, reports ABC. 

“COVID-19 isn’t only about the acute effects. This is going to leave a lot of people with long-term health consequences that they’ll have to deal with for a lifetime,” Ziyad Al-Aly, the chief of research and development at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System and lead author of the study, said to ABC News. 

“That’s jarring. It’s unsettling to accept,” Al-Aly added, according to ABC. 

The team that conducted the study examined patient data from the Department of Veterans Affairs between March 1, 2020 and Sept. 20, 2021, by comparing more than 181,000 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 to more than 4.1 million people who did not, ABC notes. 

Different theories have been offered for why a coronavirus infection increases the risk of diabetes, but none so far have been proven. One is that COVID-19 infection increases inflammation that can impact insulin secretion, and another, ABC reports, is that the coronavirus leads to disruptions in microbiome composition, which can lead to diabetes.

These findings add to the growing list of long-term health complications that can be caused by a COVID-19 infection, ABC reported.